by Bateman
When I turn it on, I turn it on.
I was flushed with my own sense of power.
And then I was just flushed. In fact, sweating. My heart was thundering. My leg began to shake. My mouth grew moist, and then sweet, and then bitter, and I felt the bile rise and then the room began to rotate and my security guard began to grow an extra head. I toppled forward and everything grew vague and all I was aware of was a vague, distant voice saying:
‘I need Special Branch . . . and an ambulance.’
18
I wasn’t wrong. I didn’t make a mistake. But science is not an exact science. There was cyanide in the hydrangea leaf. I am an expert on cyanide. It has long been a favourite of Nazis and crime writers. Agatha used it in And Then There Were None and Yellow Iris. Chandler poisoned Philip Marlowe with it in The Little Sister. It is true that I had not expected such an extreme reaction, one that led to me hurtling and hurling in a screaming ambulance through Belfast’s dank streets and then being smashed through hospital doors en route to a waiting trauma team. I had not miscalculated the amount of cyanide in the hydrangea leaf, but without actually testing it in advance I had taken a reasoned gamble on what the content might be in a randomly plucked leaf. It should not have been present in such quantities as to endanger life if ingested. Otherwise thousands of little children, who eat everything, would die every year. Hydrangeas would be outlawed. There would be Hydrangea Police employed to root them out. Either the leaf I chose had an unusually high concentration of cyanogenic glycosides or my body had overreacted to the intrusion. I am, after all, one of the most sensitive people on the planet. Alison maintains that I should live in a bubble.
Meanwhile, I was dying.
I was not aware of fighting for my life, which apparently I did. I have never been much of a fighter. I always prefer flight. Given the option, I might have taken my battle for life to arbitration. There was no out-of-body experience, though it would have been such a relief to escape for however brief a time from the pain and misery I endure on a daily basis. I was reliably informed later that the trauma team worked hard to save me, but that there was really little to be done for cyanide poisoning. They applied oxygen and performed artificial respiration using a bag and mask, as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation can be lethal to the person applying it. Then they made me inhale amyl nitrate to speed up my heart. And then they left me to see if I would wake up.
In the morning, I came round and asked for a Twix. I was not actually hungry. But it was my default setting.
The doctor, Dr Winter, who came to check on me, tried to take a complete medical history but called a halt around 1992 suffering from fatigue. He asked me if I had suicidal tendencies and why I had eaten the flower, and I informed him that I had no desire to kill myself, and also that it was a shrub. I was lying in bed, and a little groggy and weak, but that was not far removed from my normal condition.
Dr Winter said, ‘We tried to notify your next-of-kin. There was a number in your wallet for a shop – No Alibis? But there was only an answer machine. Then there was just the one number on your mobile phone.’ He checked his clipboard and read it out. It was my home number. I do not have a wide circle of friends. ‘We called it and an older-sounding woman answered but said we had a wrong number.’
I was not surprised. Mother frequently denied my existence. She wavered between me being a mistake and an abomination.
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I think you will be right as rain. But it was a close call.’ He looked at me for a bit, and then said: ‘The Midnight Gardeners. I’ve heard of them. I have to say, I’m right with you.’
‘Good,’ I said.
He waved around the ward. ‘In this business you get a lot of do-gooders. They don’t actually care about the patients, they just want to be seen to be doing good. But you, the Gardeners, you do it in the dark, in secret. You just do it because it needs to be done, not for the glory. I think, actually, that the police were quite sympathetic, although obviously they couldn’t say that.’
‘The police?’
‘Oh yes. They came in with you. And some kind of a security guard. He was determined that you be charged with theft or criminal damage or something like that, but once he explained what had happened, you could tell they really weren’t interested. They took notes and sent the guard on his way, but as soon as he was gone they were laughing and joking about it. They said they’d file a report, but that nothing would come of it. They said if they arrested every nutter out there they’d never have time to catch any real criminals.’
‘I’m not a nutter,’ I said. ‘Would a nutter know the chemical make-up of a hydrangea leaf?’
‘You’re not helping your case,’ said Dr Winter.
He wheeled me down to the doors himself. He seemed like a decent sort. Overworked, underpaid, but enough about me. He said I should go home and rest. I said there would be plenty of time to rest when I was dead.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘you came pretty close.’
He asked how one might go about joining the Midnight Gardeners. He said he had a lot of downtime and was rapidly going off humans. He gave me his mobile phone number. I told him to expect a call. I got out of the chair and walked out of the City Hospital and onto the Lisburn Road. He was still standing there watching me when I glanced back. He gave me a salute. I quite liked it, and would encourage Jeff to do the same.
I walked to No Alibis. It was only around the corner, literally a hop, skip and a jump to a healthy person, but any one of them would break my spine. It was already after nine, but there was no queue of customers anxious as to why I hadn’t opened up on time. I unlocked the many, many locks that keep my precious books secure. I entered the shop, and the first thing I did was check my messages, and sure enough, there was one there from the hospital, and, also, sixteen from Alison. They began chirpy and became more concerned before descending into panicked desperation.
It is nice that she worries about me.
I sat at the computer and began to check my e-mails. There were plenty relating to the book business, but none yet in response to the plea I had sent out to my database appealing for information on various aspects of The Case of the Man in the White Suit. I did not, of course, specify that this was the name of the case or go into details about the specifics of it, but I did ask for details about various characters who were figuring in it.
After about an hour, and there still being no sign of a customer, and my not expecting Jeff until the afternoon, I closed the shop up again and crossed to Starbucks, where I found my place on their menu and ordered. After prevaricating for some while, because I do not like daylight or passers-by, I took the only available table, which was by the window. I sipped my Espresso Frappuccino and thought some more about the case, but was distracted after ten minutes by my view of the shop, which I had locked but not shuttered, and where I could now see Alison with her face pressed against the glass door peering in. Page was strapped to her chest, like a suicide bomb.
I sipped some more, and thought some more, and when I looked up again Alison was just passing by the coffee-shop window. Our eyes met and I looked away and then I looked back and she was just standing there, with her mouth half-open, her cheeks puffy and her eyes red. And then she came storming in and stood over me and yelled, ‘Where the fuck have you been?’
‘I . . .’
‘I’ve been going out of my mind with worry!’
‘I . . .’
‘I thought you were dead or injured or lying in a coma!’
I said, ‘Sorry, I should have called. I was working on the case, lost track of time.’
‘I left you hundreds of messages! Why didn’t you pick up?’
‘I was out for a walk and must have missed them. Sorry.’
She was still glaring at me, but nevertheless she pulled out the other chair and sat down. ‘Where were you? Where were you exactly?’
‘Here, there, everywhere. You know how I am.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Your hair, what
there is of it, is all over the place. Your clothes are rumpled.’ She reached across and took my hand, but not lovingly. She raised it to her nose and smelled it, and then the arm of the jacket I was wearing. ‘You smell of antiseptic. And flowers.’
‘Shrubs,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.’
‘Of course I worry about you!’
‘You shouldn’t. There’s nothing to worry about.’
‘There’s everything to worry about!’
‘Like what?’
‘Like who you are and what you get up to and the people you get involved with. I worry all the time. Don’t you know that?’
‘There’s nothing to worry about,’ I repeated. ‘Chill.’
‘Don’t tell me to chill! Christ!’
I sipped. It was very good coffee. ‘Do you want one?’
‘No!’
‘I’m not sure if you’re allowed to sit here if you don’t—’
‘Will you shut up? I was out of my mind with worry! What happened?’
I looked at her. They say that some people are beautiful when they’re angry. Alison was not. She looked revolting. But still, I had a certain soft spot for her. She was not normally such unpleasant company, and there was always the prospect of sex. I had chosen not to tell her about the hospital because if it got out that I was someone who randomly consumed shrubbery, people would no longer bring their business to me.
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I said.
‘Are you seeing someone else?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Are you having sex with someone else?’
‘No, and keep your voice down.’
‘I want to know. Are you? I can handle it. I’m a big girl. Are you? Is that what’s going on here?’
I said, ‘Don’t be ridiculous, I love you.’
And her mouth dropped open again, and I realised my mistake immediately.
‘You’ve never told me that.’
‘I’m sure I have.’
‘No, never, ever. Really? You did tell me once before, not long after we met, but you were very, very drunk.’
‘I’m allergic to alcohol,’ I said.
She said, ‘You really love me?’
‘Yes, I do.’
There were tears in her eyes and a smile on her face.
‘What do you want for dinner?’ she asked.
‘Rissoles,’ I said.
On the way back to the shop she hooked her arm through mine, which I didn’t like one bit. At the door she said, ‘I love you more than all the tea in China.’
I nodded. I do not like tea. China remains the largest producer of tea in the world. It makes one and a quarter million tonnes of it every year. India is not far behind. Tea, like love, stays freshest when stored in a dry, cool, dark place in an airtight container.
Alison had things to do. She kissed me goodbye. It was good that people saw that. She went on her way and I opened the shop and after a while Jeff came in and asked how the case was going and I said it was going well. He took up position behind the till while I paced and thought. It was dark outside by four thirty. People say that Scandinavian crime fiction is so gritty, depressive and malevolent because those countries have such harsh winters and they spend many months in virtual darkness. I believe that is rubbish. If there was any truth in it, they would also have conquered the world with their happy-clappy twenty-four-hours-of-daylight summer novels, but to date, the best they had managed were Moomintrolls, which would drive you to suicide.
Because I knew that the vogue for Scandinavian crime fiction was over, and that my attempts to foist Irish crime fiction on the world were failing miserably, I was now preoccupied with finding what other region of the world might be open to ruthless exploitation. I was thinking deeply about this when the shop door opened and a large man in a black jacket and blacker polo-neck came in. He glanced at Jeff, and then further down the shop at me.
Jeff said, ‘Welcome to No Alibis, is there anything I can help you with?’
The man shook his head, and then walked the full length of the shop, passing me on the way. He came to the store room at the back, entered it and disappeared from view. Jeff looked at me, and I looked at him. There was a machete I kept beneath the counter for maniacs and Jehovah’s Witnesses, but I was frozen to the spot, and my tongue to the roof of my mouth. Jeff knew about it, but did not have the wit or gumption to reach for it before the man reappeared and walked back across the shop to the front door, which had remained open. He gave a thumbs-up sign in the direction of a grey people-carrier parked outside. A door on the vehicle slid back and a man in a pin-striped suit stepped out and hurried across the pavement. He carried a briefcase at his side. He slipped past the man in the doorway, who then took up a position that would block anybody else from entering, as unlikely as that might be.
This new man was short, balding, and vaguely familiar. He faced Jeff across the counter. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and felt around for something. With the feeling coming back into my legs, I took a step towards the exit at the back of the store. Before I could take another one, the man found what he was looking for and slapped it down on the counter.
‘You left this behind.’
Jeff was studying what, even with my eyesight, appeared to be one of my own business cards.
‘Do you know who I am?’ the man asked.
Jeff’s eyes didn’t even flit in my direction, but he said out of the side of his mouth: ‘Can you help this man? He doesn’t appear to know who he is.’
It was a joke, but a Jeff joke. Nobody was laughing. Not I, not Jeff, not the big bloke blocking the door or the man whose intense gaze was holding steady on my trusted assistant. He was a man I now recognised as one of the Karamazovs. He clearly believed Jeff was me. I did nothing to disabuse him of this belief until I determined if there was danger involved.
‘I am Bernard O’Dromodery,’ he said gravely, ‘and I believe I have something you’ve been looking for.’
He set his briefcase down on the counter and unlocked it. He raised the lid, and before he spun it round to show Jeff the contents, I saw what he was about to reveal.
A second defixio.
19
I moved forward to examine it. I could not help myself. It was instinct, with a dash of bravery. Bernard O’Dromodery gave a nod, as if to say, Ah, now it makes sense. This seeping idiot could not be the famous Mystery Man, the private detective who has solved numerous murder cases, unmasked spies, saved governments and rescued several cats, despite a very serious allergy.
I made a ‘Do you mind?’ gesture towards him and he stepped back to allow me to remove the curse tablet from his briefcase. I set it on the counter. Like the first one I had seen in the All Star Health Club it was written on a sheet of black lead, the curse scratched out in Latin which, for Jeff’s benefit and to impress the Karamazov brother, I immediately translated:
This curse on the House of O’Dromodery
Let them suffer, let them boil
Bring fear and death down upon
The forever-cursed House of O’Dromodery.
Jeff said: ‘It doesn’t even scan.’
‘It’s not a poem, Jeff,’ I said. ‘It’s a curse.’
‘You read it like a poem, and it’s set out like a poem.’
I sighed. I looked at Bernard O’Dromodery and said, ‘This is from the hydrangea pots outside your headquarters.’
He nodded. ‘We found it about a month after my brother Fergus fell to his death. I heard about that business with the flowers last night, and once I saw the business card I knew what you were after.’
It was on the tip of my tongue to say shrubs, but I held off. I was curious, and although it has never been a motivating factor, I also sensed money.
Bernard O’Dromodery tapped the curse tablet. ‘This is a defixio, but I’m sure you know that. I had you checked out, so I know what you do. I know you’re very good. I want to h
ire you. I have very deep pockets. I want to know who created this defixio and why. I want to know who murdered Fergus.’
Jeff was dispatched to the kitchen for coffee, and I ushered Bernard O’Dromodery towards our couch. Alison insisted on there being one to encourage customers to sit and browse. She also insisted that I offer them coffee and engage them in conversation and give reading advice, so as to make them feel connected to the store and part of our community and other shit. When she wasn’t around I took the springs out of the sofa to make it particularly uncomfor table to sit on. Coffee was indeed on offer, but it was always bitter and lukewarm. No Alibis was a crime bookshop with an edge. We didn’t do cosy.
Bernard O’Dromodery sat, awkwardly. ‘You make a living from this?’
‘Yes,’ I said, defiantly.
‘You own the property or do you rent?’
‘I own it.’
‘Much of a mortgage?’ I raised an eyebrow. He said, ‘Sorry, sorry. Old habits. But I hope it’s not too big, since this is going to get worse before it gets better.’
I said, ‘Why do you think your brother was murdered?’
He rubbed at his brow while he searched for the right words. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, ‘but I’m not used to this. Usually I snap my fingers and things get done. But this, this is out of my control. So – yes, my brother was murdered. I am certain of it. I know what people think – they see that we were struggling, and that he was our chief financial officer. The banks were calling in our loans and everywhere we turned there was doom and gloom and we were going to lose everything we worked our whole lives for . . . but if they knew anything about us, about Fergus, they would know that whatever might drive another man to throw himself off a tall building would have inspired our Fergus to fight back. Fergus saw saving our company as a challenge, not as a reason to kill himself.’
